The extended family came to Pittsburgh today to celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday. We were only missing a couple family members, so we were quite loud – Spaghetti Warehouse didn’t know what they were in for!

It was nice to hang out with everyone outside of my grandma’s house, which is pretty tiny for the size of the family. We’re not doing Thanksgiving at her house, so I won’t see most of the people in a couple weeks; the next time I’ll see them will likely be Christmas. It was especially nice to catch up with the college-aged kids… in my mind, they’re the “little” kids, but the youngest grandchild is now a sophomore in college – not so little. The two great-grandchildren weren’t there, but that’s because one of them is fifteen and was scheduled to work at his first job. When did we all get so old? I mean, I know we’re really not all that old, but MAN. I remember when the other grandkids and great-grandkids were born! And now they’re all in college or working their first jobs! The youngest is nine (I think); even he has a ton of extracurriculars and couldn’t make it.

One of these days, today’s 80th birthday celebration will feel like it was just yesterday, and the great-grandkids will have teenagers of their own. And I bet we’ll all look back on the pictures we took today and say, “Aww, we were so young back then!”